Rent This Movie – Looper [Review]

Time travel movies can be a tough sell. On one hand, if the filmmakers leave out too many details, they risk being called out by detail watchers, but if they put in too many details they risk confusing people looking for simple entertainment. Looper does a great job of straddling the line.

The basic story is that Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a futuristic hitman who's job is to knock off targets sent through time by futuristic gangsters. The only catch is, when the crime bosses are done with their hitmen, or "Loopers", their last job is to kill their future selves. And this is where the plot thickens.

Bruce Willis is Joseph Gordon-Levitt's future self who somehow shows up without the usual shackles and hood, and throws things into disarray. Getting away before he gets whacked, Willis spends the movie trying to track down the person who will grow up to become the future crime boss.

Without going into too much detail and ruining anything, the movie does a great job of not making things too complicated and almost making you feel like these things could actually happen in some dystopian future. The acting is good, Bruce Willis is his usual action movie self. And the main child actor in particular is fantastic. The kid, Pierce Gagnon, was only 6 when the movie was made, and he shows an acting ability to rival any of the adults in the film.

My only complaint has to do with the prosthetics that Joseph Gordon-Levitt is put into to resemble Bruce Willis (since Willis is the future version of Gordon-Levitt). It's a little distracting, mostly because in the past few years, Joseph Gordon-Levitt has become a pretty recognizable actor. So I found it somewhat distracting every time there was a closeup of his face, trying to put my finger on what was different, because something just didn't look right.

All in all though, it's a minor complaint for what is a good action movie. I will tell you, it's rated "R" for good reason. There is quite a bit of violence and, frankly it's not really a family movie because the younger members of the family may not really get what's going on (heck, I had to work hard to follow!).

I recommend it though, Looper is worth a rental.